


concussion

by Chainsawlicker



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Sibling Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 18:48:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15914136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chainsawlicker/pseuds/Chainsawlicker
Summary: His head hurts badly but everything around him smells like Connor, so he must be home or somewhere with Connor which is just as good. Fucking comforting smell, is what it is.





	concussion

**Author's Note:**

> My first story. Ever. Eek!
> 
> All my thanks and gratitude goes to DrSchaf. From your initial encouragement to the wielding of your Grammar Sledgehammer™ at the end, I would not have done it without you.

Something is a little off.

It’s a feeling.

He cracks open one eye which results in a rapid stabbing pain that vibrates his skull. Fuck and what? He shuts the eye; tries with his other senses. He’s in bed. Good. That’s good. His head hurts badly but everything around him smells like Connor, so he must be home or somewhere with Connor which is just as good. Fucking comforting smell, is what it is.

He shifts, tries to turn onto his side, but the movement brings a painnauseadizziness that forces a groan out of him and makes him lie frozen in fear of making the painnauseadizziness return. It also brings Connor running. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

“Murphy!”

Holy fucking _Christ_! He flails, seeking to shush the noise because it makes his head _fucking pulsate_. Oh fuck, it hurts like he got slugged, got slugged, got…"Con?" A whimper.

“Aye. I’m here, Murph.” Whispering, “Are ye all right? Ye got concussed, brother.”

“What?” There’s a spot where the pain is stemming from - on the side of his head, above his right ear. Just need to reach up there...Connor catches his hand, holds it. Then he’s leaning over him, face right up to his, mouth near his ear, hands still clasped, whispering, “Don’t touch.”

“Shhhhhhh!” He tries to wiggle his hand free.

“Murph, ye have a concussion and a big lump. No, don’t touch it. Do. Not. Hold on.” And Connor is gone, which sucks because he was the only good thing in this room. In Boston. In the world. And it fucking _hurts_.

Then Connor is there again with a glass of water and his mouth running like it does when he’s stressed and trying to be calm. But he’s whispering.

“Take these pills, aye?”

His eyes open in the tiniest slits so as to not let the light stab into them - two big, blue pills lay in Connor’s palm. He peep-watches as Connor shakes another from a plastic bottle with no label, still talking.

His words make their way through the painnauseadizziness. “Rocco _something something_ not sure how many _something else_ pain pills. Well, pretty sure. I think. Roc thinks they are.”

Murphy doesn’t care, except that he has to move to swallow them. Connor helps him sit up. He sways as the room cants wildly to the left and claws at his brother who slips behind him, holds him, grounds him - back to chest, half sitting, half lying, not puking, just maybe puking. Connor mutter-whispers encouraging syllables, and he can’t even make out the language except that it’s soothing as fuck.

Please work for chrissakes please be actual pain pills. Murphy swallows them, eyes still closed to slits against the painful light streaming in through the open door and lays against his brother; Connor’s strong arm around his chest. It’s as all right as it has been since he woke up— _came to_. Connor strokes slow circles on his stomach, lightly, soothingly, the way Ma used to.

“Con?” He feels sleepy.

“Hmmm...”

“Remember our first day at school?”

“Aye. That was a pretty bad day.”

Murphy thinks about the whack of the nun’s ruler coming down on Connor’s palm. “Ye took the blame. Took the ruler for me.” He relaxes against his brother, pliant, drifting. “First time I ‘member ye takin’ the blame.”

Conner huffs. “We were six, I’m sure I had done it numerous times already. Try to sleep, aye? Let the pills work.”

The ceiling fan is in the wrong place. That’s what is off. He wants to ask why Connor moved the fan but that doesn’t make sense. He closes his eyes. So long as he doesn’t move at all and keeps his eyes closed and Connor is there, it’s all right. It’s only when he’s almost asleep, breath synchronized with Connor’s, warm, okay for right now, that he realizes the ceiling fan looks wrong because he’s in Connor’s bed, which makes him smile before he realizes smiling hurts.

He’s concussed, concussion, concusión, concussione, comhtholgtha, concutere and his mind grasps onto a thought _it’s from the Latin_ , _from the Latin_

 

Waking up feels good. Turns out they were pain pills after all, thank God. Pretty fucking powerful ones he had no business taking three of, apparently.

He is enveloped in a lovelynumbinggoodness. Connor is still behind him, breathing through his hair, hand wandering over his shirtless chest and belly, dragging gently, lightly, soothingly. He doesn’t move because if Connor knows he’s awake Connor will stop and Connor mustn’t ever stop because this is the best thing he has ever felt. He feigns sleep, relishing the touch as Connor’s fingers sweep to the elastic of his boxers and then back to his collarbones, skirt along them, then down. It feels nice.

It feels like love.

Murphy inhales like the stupid bastard he is. He didn’t mean to—it just felt _so good_ , _so fucking good_. The caresses stop immediately and Connor drops his hand to the sheets.

“Connor?”

Behind him, Connor is still.

“Con, Con. Gotta piss.”

Connor laughs and his muscles relax in a rush. “Ye need help?”

Murphy shushes him before he notices that noise doesn’t hurt quite so badly as before. He struggles to a sitting position, Connor’s strong hand against his back.

“I got it,” he says.

He stands.

He falls.

He starts to giggle and then he can’t stop. “Fucking hell, what the fuck did ye give me?”

“I don’t know, really.” Connor hauls him up and helps him down to the bathroom. “Rocco was pretty sure they were pain pills. Do ye feel in pain, Murph?”

“Pain drain train,” Murphy says and laughs.

Connor snorts.

 

In the bedroom, Murphy falls back onto Connor’s bed. “I live here now,” he says grinning stupidly.

Connor yawns.

“Come to bed, Connor. It’s already morning, did ye even sleep at all?”

“I’ll sleep in yer bed.” He stretches.

“No.” Murphy frowns. “I need ye here. Cause of the concussion. In my head. Aye?”

“Aye, Murph, okay.” He slides in. “There isn’t much room.” Shift and struggle, elbow in the ribs, fucking ow and be careful. Murphy stretches out on his back, his broad shoulders taking up much of the room and Connor curls on his side next to him, chin grazing his shoulder and one leg hooked over and around his legs so as not to fall off.

Connor closes his eyes.

“Con?”

He sighs. “What, Murph?”

“Make me cigarettes.”

Connor opens his eyes and glares, but Murphy smiles the handsome, winning smile he uses to get his way, and Connor rolls off to find his pack.

Halfway through his second smoke, Murphy asks, “Con?”

“Aye?”

“Do ye remember when we were thirteen?”

There’s a moment of quiet, then he answers, “Aye.”

“It didn’t feel wrong.”

There's silence.

“To me.”

More silence.

“Connor, do ye know what I’m talking about?”

Connor breathes in and out loudly. “Of course I do, Murph. Yer talking about wanking together.”

_In one bed, facing each other, hair sweaty, foreheads pressed together, breath coming harsh and hard, each watching the other’s hand, movements synchronized without trying, one triggering the other so it’s almost exactly the same time and then not leaving, not cleaning, over but still want upon want upon want_

Murphy turns his head so he can see Connor’s face on the pillow so close to his.

“It was more than that.”

“I know.”

“It didn’t feel wrong.”

“Aye. But we did the right thing by stopping when we were told it was.”

Murphy huffs out a small breath. “I missed it. Hardly did it after that because...it seemed...I don’t know. I missed it. I thought we could do everything together.”

“I know.”

They’re quiet.

“Con?”

“Aye?”

“Do ye remember our fifteenth birthday?”

“Aye, of course.”

They had gotten definitely gonna hurl drunk for the first time. On purpose.

_Turning on a whim, mind clouded with desire and fueled by alcohol, fingers digging into shoulders, pushing, pressing, growing hard, mouth against mouth, hard and tender, and that one moment, memorized to be recalled over and over and over, that one moment of fingers in hair and pulling a little and it is so good, just like every imagined time, and then really pulling and taking a step back and his stomach does a flip flop_

“Ye didn’t kiss me back.”

“Ye were drunk.”

Murphy rolls onto his side so they are face to face. “And ye didn’t kiss back that time when we were at our cousin’s wedding.”

“Ye were drunk then too.”

“Or in that abandoned house. Or behind the school. Or in that hotel. Or that time on the roof.” He frowns at Connor. “Ye _never_ kiss back.”

“Well, let’s see: drunk, high, high and drunk, and really, really drunk.” Connor smiles and Murphy just _wants_.

They are so close, less than an inch between their noses, there’s no reason he can’t press his mouth against Connor’s _against Connor’s mouth, his mouth, his fucking mouth_ and if he kissed him back this time, if...

He does. He moves forward and presses his lips onto Connor’s who kisses back and kisses back, kisses back.

And then shoves him away. “Enough, Murphy. Yer fucked up.”

He smiles and moves to kiss him again.

“Jeezus, Murph.” Connor tries to squirm away, but there’s nowhere to go crammed into this tiny twin bed with his own twin brother.

“Connor,” Murphy says in nearly a whisper. “Ye kissed me back.” He smiles again. Not his regular smile - his uninhibited drug smile, and Connor shakes his head.

“Look, Murph, I just. This conversation. I. It.” He breathes in and holds it, lets it out slowly. “It was fucking scary tonight, yesterday, I guess. Ye went down so fast and so hard and it was like I could feel it - not the blow, nothing like that. But…” He glances at him and Murphy thinks he hasn’t seen Connor look this scared in months, not since those first days in America before they had sorted themselves. Connor pushes on, “When he knocked ye out, I could feel ye gone.” He points to his head. “In here. Scared the shite outta me.”

“I’m sorry, Connor.” He hugs him and Connor hugs back. He smells like cigarettes and love.

After a beat, Murphy says, “So ye did like kissing”, followed by that smile.

“Fuck, Murph!” Connor punches his chest, but not hard. “I am saying yer brain is rattled and I will not take advantage of it. Yer concussed. And on drugs.”

And he suddenly remembers what he wanted to tell Connor, _needs_ to tell him. “Con, it’s Latin. It’s from the Latin. Concussion. Concutere. It’s us.”

“Aye. We are a concussion. Have ye lost it completely? This is what I mean. Stop talking shite and go to sleep.”

“We are, Con. It’s a sign.” And Murphy rushes out, “It’s Latin, means; dash together, shake.” He grins and tries to roll on top of Connor.

“Fuck.” Connor shifts and gains advantage enough to press Murphy into the bed. “Ye are on drugs. Not like this, aye? Brother, ye can’t even make sense.”

“But it does make sense, Connor. It does. We were dashed together in the womb. By God. It’s why we are “us” and not “ye and me”.”

“And the shaken part?”

He grins. “That’s why we are so fucked up.”

He watches Connor consider this and thinks he is going to win. But Connor touches his face, tenderly keeping his head immobile on the pillow.

“Murphy, ye are the most important thing to me. I won’t ever destroy that. Yer fucked up. There is a good possibility that ye won’t remember anything when ye wake up. I just. There is no rush, aye? Let’s sleep now because I don’t want either ye or me to regret anything about us, all right?”

Murphy puts his hand on Connor’s face and tries to memorize it, how his lashes make small shadows under his eyes, the faint scar on his chin that he got falling down the stairs when they were four. Murphy traces the features of his brother’s face until his eyes can’t stay open and his breathing evens out and his head finds a place on Connor’s shoulder and he makes himself a home in Connor’s heart.

 

Hours later, waking, ouch and throb, hiss, “My head” and “What the fuck happened”. Connor fills him in on the concussion; the rest he dismisses with a shrug. “Then I took care of ye.”

 

****

  
Two weeks later, Connor MacManus holds court at McGinty’s - telling the story of the concussion Murphy doesn’t remember. Connor elaborates more each time he tells it: the big guy who landed the roundhouse punch grows exponentially larger, the blow more fierce, and the fall from standing to knocked out on his arse further.

Murphy watches from a table with Rocco as Connor pantomimes his fall - it’s the end of the story. Their friends and regulars turn away laughing.

“You know he almost killed that guy? Woulda too, I think.”

Murph looks sideways at Rocco and drags on his cigarette. “What?” He watches Connor wander to the pool table, challenge whoever’s there.

“That guy who gave you that concussion.” He punches Murphy on the arm. “He almost killed him. He never told you though, did he?”

He shakes his head, watching Connor rack up the balls, leaning easily over the table.

Rocco shakes his hair, “You two are strange.”

Murphy swallows.

Rocco chugs the rest of his beer and leans forward in his storytelling pose, hands on knees, hair swaying, body swaying. “We all saw - hell, we all _heard_ his fucking fist catch you in the side of the head and you just fucking dropped, Murph. Like a goddamn sack of potatoes.” He smacks his hand onto the table for emphasis and little drops of water and beer fly up out of the wet circles from glasses. “Down. Next thing anyone heard sounded like a motherfucking roar, I mean, like some sort of animal, like a motherfucking lion from Africa, and Connor came fucking charging across this room just throwing tables and chairs. I shit you not. He made a fucking _path_ , man. And he was screaming.” Rocco looks at him. “Screaming your fucking name. Fucking angrier than I’ve ever seen him.” Rocco laughs - Connor’s temper is well known. “He got that big ass fuck from behind and fucking slammed him face first into the bar rail - you can see the fucking dent in it from fucking here - took out three teeth in front. I shit you not. He went a little fucking crazy. Kept fucking beating the dude in the face and head, fucking yelling that he was gonna kill the prick, that no one touched his brother, picked up a pitcher and broke it over his fucking skull, like...” He demonstrates with the empty pitcher from their table, swinging it wildly in an arc. “It was when he grabbed a sliver of broken goddamn glass and made for that asswipes’ jugular that I realized I had to fucking do something.”

He grins at Murphy through a fog of smoke and hair. “You probably have me to thank for your fucking brother not fucking killing a guy fucking outright.” He nods and grins some more. Then he adds, “Well, me and a few others.” He looks across the room at Connor, then back at Murphy. “Took goddamn four of us to pull him off.”

Murphy smokes and watches Connor, his heart hammering in his chest as the fog in his mind that obscured the event begins to clear.

_He was a stranger, a big redneck, funny accent, from the South somewhere. Big meaty face, big meaty hands. He and Rocco were talking with the guy, laughing together at their various accents; “No, you’re the one who talks fucking funny, man”. The exact joke that got him punched, decked, fucking laid out is still foggy...something about the redneck’s mother...and then black again, until Connor. Connor, Connor, Connor…_

“Murph!” Connor. It’s Connor, smiling and beautiful. “Let’s go home, aye?”

They do. And while Connor sleeps, Murphy shifts through his memory-flooded mind and forms a plan.

 

After coffee, after aspirin, after washing up and prayers, Connor stretches out on his bed. “I could take a nap. A nice, wee nap.” He stretches again and smiles at Murphy leaning in the doorway, watching him. “What, man?”

“Con.” He says, confident in his plan. Because he understands now. Coherently, _soberly_ understands.

“What?” Connor sits up, face in a frown.

“I remember.”

“That’s grand, Murph. Mind elaborating?”

“I remember getting knocked out. I remember the pills. I remember our conversation. I remember yer bed. Us.”

His brother swallows visibly, shifts, but his gaze is steady.

“I’m not drunk.” Murphy takes off his shoes.

“I’m not high.” Socks go next.

“Or on pain meds.” His shirt comes off.

He waits, suddenly nervous, confidence having fled and feeling exposed. “Connor?”

“Aye.” Shedding his shirt, shifting, making space, inviting.

Long strides to cross the room, he crashes into the bed, into Connor - bodies colliding, bones jarring, hearts melding...dash together, shake.


End file.
